Nasa images reveal Comet Atlas shattering into pieces

Image source, NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), Q. Ye (University of

Image caption, The comet is thought to have been the size of a football field originally but now some of the pieces are the size of a house

Exciting new images of Comet Atlas as it flies towards Earth have been released by Nasa and the European Space Agency.

Astronomers had thought it could be one of the brightest comets to fly past Earth in years.

However, the comet has been getting dimmer recently leading to concerns that it was actually breaking up into pieces.

Now, these latest images by the Hubble Space Telescope prove that the object has broken up but they also show that it is putting on a light display as it crumbles.

'Super cool to watch'

Image source, NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), Q. Ye (University of

Image caption, Here are two images of the comet taken by the Hubble telescope showing a clear difference over a few days

"This is really exciting 鈥 both because such events are super cool to watch and because they do not happen very often," said Quanzhi Ye from the University of Maryland, who is one of those responsible for the new images.

"Most comets that fragment (break up) are too dim to see. Events at such scale only happen once or twice a decade."

The break up of comets are hard to predict, and usually happen very quickly, making it hard for astronomers to know what causes it.

Comet Atlas will keep flying through space and will get as near as 115 million kilometres to Earth around late May, before shooting off towards the Sun.